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While there clearly are not enough jobs to go around, some people are getting hired. Every day, every hour, thousands of people are selected from thousands more who are ready, willing and able to work. The question is, why is it that some people get hired and some don’t?
I have an unusual perspective on this. I read several résumés a week. My human resources person reads hundreds. There are some obvious answers like education, connections, experience and even enthusiasm. But there is another reason that may be just as significant: bad résumé and interview skills, especially for applicants right out of school or someone who hasn’t interviewed in a long time. I can’t tell you how many times we have interviewed a recent college graduate who would surely get an F in Job Hunting 101.
As a parent of a soon-to-graduate student (last one, yippee!), I am thinking about the students and their parents as they enter the real world. I can easily imagine what these grads tell their parents when they can’t find a job: “No one is hiring!” “You don’t understand how competitive it is out there!” “I’m thinking of going to grad school!”
Poor dad. Poor mom. And I do mean poor. With the cost of college, parents can be forgiven for expecting their grads to be able to land a job. There’s no question that this has been as tough an economy as we’ve had in a long time, but again, even in the worst economy, some people do land jobs. Here’s my top 10 list of what you can do to improve your odds.
Review the résumé. Review it again. Have a grown-up review it. Would it surprise you to learn that a third of the résumés we get have misspellings? I just looked at one that listed the person’s address as Chicago,...